■ Introduction
The concept of marketing is inherently simple – business success through
a process of understanding and meeting customer needs. Few would
argue with this basic principle, and even the most inexperienced of busi-
ness managers would intuitively see the sense in this. Given this basic
simplicity, why do we need something as complicated, and time consum-
ing, as a marketing strategy?
While basic business principles may be simple common sense, achieve-
ment involves many complex, interdependent or even conflicting tasks.
Increasingly, such tasks are undertaken against a backdrop of constant
change, intense competition and limited resources. To further enhance the
challenge, managers are often at the mercy of incomplete data and unex-
pected events, often being left to ‘second guess’ customer and competitor
reactions. It is to this end, marketing strategy has become a vital component
of success. A well considered, effectively implemented, marketing strat-
egy should go some way to alleviating the aforementioned problems and
reduce the complexity of business tasks. Strategy should restore simplicity
to the art of management. In essence, it is a series of tools and techniques
that guide (hopefully) the organisation to the marketing panacea – success
through a process of understanding and meeting customer needs.
The modern business world now recognises the importance of strategic
issues and the contribution of strategic management to business success.
While this has many benefits it also brings many problems. It could be
argued that ‘strategy’ (or ‘strategic’) is the most overused/misused phrase
in business today. Everybody seems to have a ‘strategy’ for everything. By
attaching the term ‘strategy’ to an activity, it somehow becomes more
important – more grand – but in reality very little actually gets done! To
illustrate this, the authors recall the recent experience of sitting through a
seemingly endless meeting, listening to people jabber on-and-on about
their ‘strategy’ or the need for a strategic view. Finally, someone said some-
thing sensible; ‘... there’s too much strategy and not enough people doing
things!’. This blunt comment is memorable for two reasons. Firstly, it ended
a tedious meeting. Secondly, and more importantly, it illustrated a key
point: strategy must lead to action, not be a substitute for it. Ultimately, all
organisations need ‘... people doing things’. The goal of strategy is to
Increasingly competitive market conditions require strategic responses. Strategic decisions
define core competencies and integrate activities. Strategic management recognises the import-
ance of implementation and managing change. Essentially, strategic marketing management
and subsequent marketing strategies, contribute to overall business goals through a three
stage process: analysis, formulation and implementation.